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Why Nature's Select Pet Food?

May 01, 2019

A New Era For Pet Food

With the new year came new guidelines and regulations from AAFCO (Association of American Feed Control Officials) and from the FDA regarding pet food. Read below for an update regarding Nature's Select Pet Food and discover how our company has worked hard over the past few months to enhance our formulas to exceed your pet's health needs.

2019 AAFCO UPDATE

Effective Spring 2019, all of our dog food products were updated to comply with the latest Association of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO) labeling requirements for “All Life Stage” products. In order to be labeled “All Life Stage including growth of large size dogs (70 lb. or more as an adult),” a food must contain less than 1.8% calcium. The previous calcium threshold was 2.5%. In compliance with AAFCO requirements where necessary, we reduced the amount of calcium in our formulas and made other slight enhancements to the ingredient profile depending on the product, including the addition of some new ingredients or the order of ingredients listed on the packaging.

These ingredient enhancements are based on the latest industry data and recent research on nutrition for dogs. We have validated through third-party testing that the updated formulas have comparable nutrient profiles to our previous formulas. As always, Nature’s Select continues to provide the unique core ingredients - four essential ingredients including Selenium Yeast, superior Mineral Complexes, Prebiotics, and Probiotics - that provide pets with superior nutrition.

FOOD SAFETY & QUALITY

Food safety remains our top priority. Our ingredients are tested both internally and externally to ensure they meet our high standards of quality. We also extensively test our finished products to ensure the health and safety of the pets eating our products.

We are proud to say that our Texas-based pet food manufacturer has earned the SQF Code for Manufacturing 8.0, the SQF Quality Code 8.0, and the FSC 36 Safe Feed/Safe Food in 2018. In addition, all our recipes are formulated to meet AAFCO regulations. We constantly analyze both raw materials and finished diets to validate AAFCO standards.

new Calcium levels

Worried about high levels of Calcium? Not with Nature's Select Pet Food! All of our formulas meet AAFCO guidelines and FDA regulations for approved calcium levels in both dry cat and dry dog food.

As we mentioned above, to receive the label “All Life Stage including growth of large size dogs (70 lb. or more as an adult),” a pet food must contain less than 1.8% calcium. The previous calcium threshold was 2.5%. In compliance with AAFCO requirements where necessary, we reduced the amount of calcium in our formulas.

Protein Source: Meat Meal

Ingredients are listed by dry matter weight on the package. We have a long history of using protein meal in our pet food products. Protein meals (and in this case dehydrated meats) are dried products which we believe are superior nutritionally to fresh meat products from a food safety standpoint. Also, protein meals allow us to add much more protein per pound than fresh meat. What does this mean for your dog? Our enhanced recipes have MORE MEAT in our products than we ever did before! This is GREAT for the dogs.

OUR Ingredients

The quality of our ingredients is extremely important to us. We source our ingredients from valued and trusted suppliers who are dedicated to providing the very highest-quality ingredients available on the market today. The majority of our ingredients are locally sourced in the state of Texas. We are one of only a few pet food manufacturers that uses the amino acid complex minerals from Zinpro Corporation, which has the research to prove its minerals are better absorbed and provide a well-documented response when being fed. Many of the big-name brands still use predominantly inorganic forms of trace minerals or less bioavailable forms of organic trace minerals.

In compliance with AAFCO requirements, we reduced the amount of calcium in our formulas and made other slight enhancements to the ingredient profile depending on the product. In making these changes, the order of ingredients may have shifted. All Nature’s Select Pet Food formulas maintain the highest quality, complete and balanced nutrition for dogs.

DIGESTIBILITY & PALPABILITY PROVEN

With the formulation tweaks that were made, this dog food is as palatable if not more so than the prior formula based upon the knowns of the higher meat inclusion and other formulation factors. In several of the updated Nature’s Select formulas, we are also using more palatant (natural flavors) than before as we have tried to make the palatant levels uniform across our various lines of production.

You need not worry if your pet will not like the taste of his formula. As mentioned above, there is more protein coming from a meat meal source in each recipe now which results in higher digestibility for your pet than ever before. For the most part as you look across the line up of our Nature's Select products, the recipes have significantly more meat verses our prior formulas. We truly believe that these products will feed better, and that the results will show in your pet's performance overall.

9 times out of 10, if you put a bowl of another brand of pet food next to a bowl of Nature's Select Pet Food, a dog will always go for our pet food first. Why? Often times we find that because our pet food is guaranteed fresh, the dog will literally SMELL the difference of freshness in the product. Fun Fact: A dog eats by sense of smell, not by sense of taste!

Customer Satisfaction

Customers LOVE our pet food! Curious about the Nature's Select Difference? We encourage you to check out our Customer Testimonials - real stories from real people who have seen an improvement in their dogs on our pet food.